Unlocked
by hrhowling
Summary: He wasn't meant to exist. They were though, but they'd been locked up because they knew the truth. Now he planned to get them out, no matter what the cost...
1. Prologue

**Here it is! An actual fanfic that isn't drabble! Of course, I won't stop doing The Little Oddity series, don't worry.**

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><p>When he first became aware, his first thoughts were; 'I don't belong here.'<p>

It was true. He shouldn't have been there. He'd been abandoned at the very last minute, his personality and appearance all smoothed out and ready for the track, but then they ditched him because there was a chance he'd be seen as more important than the lead character. Oh well, whatever was best for the game.

Then came the pain.

It was agonising, as if he was being torn apart. A scream ripped out of his throat, the sound becoming distorted and glitchy. What was happening to him?

"V-vv-a-a-an-e-e-l-o-p-e-e!"

He was sliding in and out of consciousness, the world a mad blur, and all he could hear was his laugh coming out of someone else's lips; sick, deranged and twisted.

The last thing he heard was a little girl's scream of terror…

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><p>That was fifteen years ago. Now he has a physical form yet again.<p>

The only problem is that his rightful face is hated throughout the arcade, and his next actions were likely to get him killed.

But he couldn't leave Them in that abominable prison any longer. They deserved freedom, and he planned to give it to Them, no matter what the cost.


	2. Chapter 1 - Something's Missing

**Chapter 1 – Something's Missing**

Something was missing.

It wasn't anything obvious, and only she could feel it, but Vanellope definitely felt that something was missing. She just didn't know what.

"Something wrong, Van?"

Vanellope looked up to see the golden eyes of her Cy-human friend Oda gazing down at her. The six-foot-tall experiment had finally been allowed to leave the lab in Hero's Duty after she'd emerged from that cocoon she'd been encased in for two weeks. Since then, subtle changes had come about her; the most noticeable was the jagged, neon purple-blue lines that went over her eyes, three over each.

The two friends were now seated at Tapper's; Vanellope holding a mug of weak root beer in her hands, Oda sipping from a glass of chocolate milkshake.

"Nothing, just a weird feeling," Vanellope muttered, gradually returning to her outgoing, no-care attitude.

"What kind of weird feeling?"

"Like something's missing. But I just don't know what."

Oda tilted her head, swallowing a mouthful of the ice cream milkshake. "What do you think it is?"

In exasperation, Vanellope threw her hands in the air and yelled; "I don't know!"

"Perhaps it's that fancy princess outfit of yours," Oda smirked. "You ought to-."

"Don't even think about it!" Vanellope retorted with a chuckle. In turn, Oda laughed too, the jubilant sound drawing the attention of a few people next to the pair.

"Anyways, what do you _really_ think it could be?" she asked, struggling to put her serious face back on.

"I dunno," Vanellope shrugged, placing her elbow on the bar and resting her chin on her hand. "I really don't know."

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><p>He waited by the bridge leading out of the game, as if he was standing sentinel. He kept rubbing his wrists unconsciously for no real reason other than the fact that the cuffs of his elaborate coat had a bad habit of itching at his skin. He had no real plan other than to tag behind Vanellope and look for a chance to sneak into the castle and hope that he could get his hands on the Fungeon keys. From what he could remember of… <em>his<em> reign… the Fungeon keys were kept in the study in a drawer. He'd have pilfered them a long time ago if at the time he'd been more than an immaterial mass of pixels.

Speaking of which, he felt himself relax and a wave of light-headedness ripple over him as he glitched momentarily into a mass of glowing purple pixels and binary strings. He'd certainly have to get used to that. After fifteen years of living in a permanent glitch, the presence of a physical body had been tough to get used to.

He sighed softly, leaning against a large jawbreaker. There were a lot of things he'd have to get used to, namely the amount of suspicion that would arise when he revealed himself.

"Thith ith proving to be a lot tougher than I firtht ecthpected."

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><p><strong>Hoohoo! Guessing games! Very easy guessing games!<strong>

**So, what do you think? Please leave a review, they're basically internet hugs for me!**


	3. Chapter 2 - The First

**Okay, I was kinda stuck as to how to carry on from Chapter 1. I could either carry on with the present, or start sliding into the past. I chose the past.**

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><p><span><strong>Chapter 2 – The First<strong>

_Sugar Rush, c. 15 years ago_

The first to appear had been a young boy in an oversized coat, roughly two months after the game had been plugged in and cleverly reprogrammed. He'd started off as a large mass of glitching green pixels and swirling strings of binary, but solidified and took shape within mere seconds.

Then the kid had immediately started asking about – urgh, he shuddered to think about it – the Glitch.

It turned out the unlockable characters had retained their memories of the game's true ruler. King Candy didn't want to risk doing any damage to the codes or, worse yet, undoing all his hard work trying to shove the escaped memories in with the rest, so he resolved the issue by locking the kid up in the Fungeon.

And he honestly hoped that that was the end of it.

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><p><span><em>A few weeks later, presumably a month or so after being unlocked<em>

Yet again, Cole was searching for a way out of the sugary prison he'd found himself in. And all because he knew who should have been sat on the throne of Sugar Rush in the place of the Faux King, as he had dubbed the despicable character who had imprisoned him in the first place.

Eventually, Cole gave up. He'd tried everything he could possibly think of already, from busting down the door to dissolving the hard candy walls until he'd made a tunnel out. Nothing had worked, the massive, dusty cell was escape-proof. In his frustration, he kicked at the pink wafer bed that hung suspended from a pair of chains.

"You can't hide forever!" he yelled angrily to no one in particular, however his words were obviously meant for the Faux King. "Someday your disguise will fall away and they'll all know!"

_Voip_.

Cole lifted his head towards the sound. What the heck was that?

"Hello?"

_Vwarp!_

The sound seemed to be coming from just beyond the cell door. Curious, the young racer walked over to it and tried to peer out of the small window at the top. He was too short to reach though. Undeterred, he jumped up and managed to grasp the bars. With a grunt of effort, he pulled himself up until he could see outside onto the darkened corridor beyond.

What he saw wasn't what he'd expected; a mass of glittering purple pixels, intertwined with long lines of numbers. It crackled softly, occasionally letting out soft _voip_ noises. The initial size and shape of it was similar to Cole's

"What are you supposed to be?" Cole asked. "Some sort of glitch?"

_Viop!_

"I'll take that as a yes… So, uh… you wouldn't happen to know how to get me out, huh?"

The top of the shape shook slightly, as if it was shaking it's head to say 'I'm sorry, but I don't know.'

"You and I really need to come up with a better way to communicate…"

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><p><strong>I think this could have been better, but I'll leave you lot to decide.<strong>


	4. Chapter 3 - Intrusion

**I'm very iffy about this chapter. In fact, I'm kinda lacking the motivation for this story right now, but I need to get it done before I move onto the next story in this series (you heard me right! SERIES!), otherwise it won't make much sense.**

**I'm hoping this is okay.**

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><p><strong><span>Chapter 3 – Intrusion<span>**

_Present Day_

It was late in the night when Oda suddenly woke up from the rapidly fading nightmare that had invaded her sleep. Already, it was near impossible to recall. Something to do with Cy-Bugs and Vanellope. Oh well, at least it was over.

She had asked her surrogate mother; the head scientist Jean; if she could spend the night at Sugar Rush, and to her great happiness she'd been allowed to do so. Oda had been feeling an odd sense of being watched for the past few days, and it was setting off her danger warning codes. It was probably nothing, but she just wanted to put her mind at ease. It didn't help to have Cy-Bug codes that prompted her to check every shadow she passed for danger.

Feeling a little more relaxed after having woken up from the nightmare, Oda lay back and simply let her mind wander. Eventually she decided she was hungry.

She checked the time; 01:23. Great… Picking herself up out of bed, she quietly made her way to the kitchens, making sure not to wake up Vanellope.

Halfway there, she heard the faint, warbled sound of someone glitching.

"Vanellope?" she asked, turning around to where she'd heard it. "Is that you?"

No answer.

"You don't have to hide from me, you know. I won't reprimand you for staying up late or even getting a midnight snack. It would actually be a pretty hypocritical thing to do, considering that's what I'm doing. Vanellope?"

There was another faint _'voip!_' followed by a subtle flash of purple. Had Vanellope's glitch changed colour?

"You sleepwalking or something?" Oda joked, trying to ease the growing tension in her throat.

A small patter of feet and the greeted her ears. It sounded like someone was trying to hide from her.

"Vanellope, that's not funny," Oda stressed, her muscles tense beneath her plum purple carapace. "Stop it right now!"

A figure with a large nose, just a few inches taller than Vanellope, rushed from behind a decorative table that was pressed against the wall, and high-tailed in the opposite direction Oda had been headed.

Back towards Vanellope.

Immediately, Oda raced after the intruder, intent of making sure they didn't do anything to harm her friend/sister. With her long strides, she easily caught up.

The stranger wore a dark hood to conceal their face, but it was threatening to fall away as they tried to flee the castle. Before they even had a chance to leave the corridor, Oda swooped down and grabbed them by the collar of their cloak.

"Aaack! H-hey! I can't breathe!" the stranger flustered in his male, goofy voice.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?!" Oda snarled, lifting the man to her eye level. "And talk fast!"

"I'm King Candy and I'm on a thpecial mithssion!"

"… You're kidding me… right?"

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><p><strong>Dat ending XD<strong>

**But err... certainly could be better...**


	5. Chapter 4 - Two More

**I have a feeling that this entire story could have been a whole lot better, but so far it's not so bad. I hope you enjoy this chapter, it was a lot more interesting to write than the last ones.**

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><p><strong><span>Chapter 4 – Two More<span>**

The next ones came in a set of two. Fraternal twins. Like the first, they knew the truth.

It shouldn't have bothered him, but they looked too familiar.

Bright yellow eyes that glinted with young defiance, predominantly red hair streaked with white and a purely red-and-white colour scheme made to resemble candy canes. In short; twin Sugar Rush versions of Turbo.

It wasn't shock that had filled him, but rage. How _dare_ they try to replace him with these… these hopeless _children_! He was _Turbo_! _Nothing _could replace him!

Spurred on by this newfound hate, he promptly tossed the pair of delinquents into the Fungeon with the first. He didn't bother checking the codes to see if he could reprogram them.

_Let them rot…_

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><p>Cole looked up as the door was opened for the first time in what was possibly about seven months.<p>

"Hide!" he hissed to KC. The glitched mass of pixels warbled softly in response before passing through the wall to hide away in the adjacent cell. Cole slouched against the hard candy-brick walls and tried to look as if he'd been like that all day.

He needn't have bothered. Just as soon as the door was opened, a pair of figures in red and white were roughly tossed into the cell before the door was slammed shut.

"If you two brats think you can replace me, then you've got another thing coming," the Faux King snarled. Without another word, he left.

Cole waited a few seconds before getting up and walking over to the new arrivals.

"You guys okay?" he asked hesitantly.

"Y-yeah, we're fine," mumbled the boy. He had shaggy red hair streaked with white, and a white jacket with red stripes on the sleeves. "Just a little shaken up."

Holding out his hand, Cole offered to help the girl out. She accepted.

"My name's Cole Sherbert," Cole said. "What are yours?"

"I'm Carlos," the boy said. "This is my sister Carla. We're the Cane Twins."

"Do you have any idea who that creep is?" Carla asked. "Because he sure isn't the ruler of Sugar Rush."

Cole shrugged. "I don't know. All I know is that he stole the skin of an abandoned character and deleted Princess Vanellope's code."

"He told you all that?" Carlos queried. "All he said to us is that we're hopeless ripoffs."

"_He_ didn't tell me, but the character whose skin he stole did."

"You mean that guy's still alive?"

Nodding, Cole walked over to the wall that KC had passed through earlier and knocked on it.

"KC? You can come back in now."

There was the faint warbling of someone glitching, and a glowing shape comprised of shimmering pixels emerged from the wall. It warped several times, making soft warbles of varying pitches.

"This is KC," Cole explained. "He's the original King Candy. But of course… he's rather… different to the jerk who locked us up here."

"A Glitch?" Carla asked incredulously. "So that's what happens to characters who've had their avatars taken away?"

"In this case… I guess so," Cole shrugged.

"So he can talk, right?" Carlos asked.

'KC' warped rapidly several times, as if his sounds were some sort of coded sequence.

"Kinda. He talks with those warping sounds, like Morse code. The fake king stole his voice file as well. It took us ages to memorise it correctly. We still haven't gotten a full vocabulary worked out. Just basic words and phrases. The grammar is horrendous too."

"Talk about OCD," Carla whispered into her brother's ear, earning a snort of amusement from Carlos. Cole didn't seem to have heard, but KC was another matter.

Carlos raised his hand. "Quick question; when's lunch?"

Despite the grim situation, everyone laughed heartily, including the Glitched King.

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><p><strong>I still think this could have been better, but I'm happy with it.<strong>


	6. EXTREME APOLOGY!

**Guys, I am so, ****_so_**** sorry. This isn't the update you've been waiting for, and I have a reason/excuse for it so please hear me out.**

**I got a little caught up in other fanfictions, that's my first excuse. I was going to carry on with this story about a week ago, but I lost the memory stick that contains the next chapter which I had been ****_so_**** close to finishing until I ****_lost it!_**** AAARGH!**

**Urgh, rage over. I'm still looking for the memory stick, but if it truly is gone forever, then that means goodbye to Chapter 5 of Unlocked and all my other stories. I'll give it another week before I start the promised chapter again. In the meantime, sorry for the wait. I'll probably start another one-shot for my 'Little Oddity' series.**

**h. ~**


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